


don't you breathe for me

by ElasticElla



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Ghost Shane, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 23:40:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13775064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticElla/pseuds/ElasticElla
Summary: Shane dies in his sleep on an unusually warm January night.





	don't you breathe for me

**Author's Note:**

> this actually ended up like 500% less angsty than originally plotted so idk man  
> title from mcr's sleep
> 
> ([i tumble ^.^](http://lesbiancleophas.tumblr.com))

Shane dies in his sleep on an unusually warm January night.

When he wakes up again, it takes him a little bit to realize he’s looking down at his own body. And oh, that sucks. Well, hey at least Ryan was right for once- that he still has consciousness of some sort is a pleasant surprise. 

He knows his thinking is different from before; for one thing he doesn’t seem all that perturbed by his sudden death, nor does he feel all that curious about why or how his mind has changed. What he _is_ curious about is what he can do. 

There’s a post-it note on his bedside table, and Shane tries to move it. 

He focuses all of his energy, all of his willpower on the tiny little sheet of yellow. 

Absolutely nothing happens, and it becomes eerily clear that Shane isn’t sure if he occupies any space. He can’t feel a body or anything like that, his field of vision is gradually floating downwards. Dammit, he better not be an orb. God, anything but orbs. 

Shane tries moving the post-it again- how the fuck is he going to do anything if he can’t even move a stupid piece of paper?- and it slides off the table. 

He’s so excited he doesn’t realize his vision is dimming until it’s too late, everything going black. 

.

It isn’t truly sleep, it’s close enough to nothingness that Shane doesn’t know he still exists until he wakes. 

It’s different this time, he realizes that right away. (Whether that’s due to the creepy non-sleep or time is unclear.) This time he has a faint sense of himself and this time the apartment is completely gutted. 

A few weeks perhaps? Long enough for his family to clear out his stuff, but not so long that the landlord’s already replaced him. 

It’s clean enough that there aren’t any small objects laying around- just sparse furniture- but there is a light switch. Reaching out, he flicks up and the lights go on. 

Shane would laugh if sound was a thing he could produce, he really should work on that, rapidly turning the lights on and off. It takes almost no effort, even easier than doing the action alive and Shane turns to the rest of the room. 

There’s the rickety old chair he hated, and he shoves it to the ground. It cracks loudly, wood splintering everywhere- and oh, that’s so much more satisfying than turning the lights on and off. Reaching for the broken pieces of wood, he wants to see how many of them he can hold at once. While he extends himself towards objects to do things, it isn’t as if he’s actually physically interacting with them. It’s all spiritual energy or whatever, and god Ryan’s going to have a damn field day when he finds out. 

The first three pieces are easy to float, the fourth feels like doing almost too many things at once, and at the fifth, he drops them all. He doesn’t give up, starting over- he’ll need to be a fully functional ghost to communicate with Ryan.

He isn’t sure how long it takes, the light coming in from the one window dims and brightens a few times, but he’s slowly getting better. Is only dropping one bit of wood when he messes up instead of all of them, and finally floats all nineteen pieces at once. 

Exhilarated he goes for the bed frame next, wood clattering to the floor as the metal rises. It’s too much and he tries to let go, but unconsciousness comes rushing at him first. 

.

He isn’t out as long this time. Or at least, Shane’s pretty sure it isn’t that long because there’s still the mess of a previous chair all over the floor. While he still isn’t visible, he has a much stronger feeling of himself, of having an echo of his body. 

It actually feels like his arms reaching instead of nebulous energy, and he can’t make stuff ambiguously float anymore. Well, to a point he can in that he can hold stuff and it looks to be floating, but the spiritual juggling is out. 

Moving is easier like this though, with legs he isn’t just at the whims of the air vents. And so Shane goes to Ryan. 

Every step away from the apartment is increasingly difficult, feels like he’s wading through mud chest-deep. But he’s still moving, even if increasingly slowly, and he’s going to get there dammit. There’s no way he’s spending his afterlife alone in his old apartment, that just sounds fucking depressing. 

One of the nice things about being incorporeal is he doesn’t have to move out of anyone’s way while walking down the road. A few people have walked through him- which is startlingly unpleasant- one he even recognizes as Sara’s no-longer-new girlfriend. And while he wants to visit all of his friends and family, he doesn’t think it’d be a good idea. He’d have to convince them ghosts are real, and then that he was in fact their Shane and- it’s not like he knows how long he’ll be here. It’d be cruel to give them false hope and rip it away. Ryan will understand though, can maybe even help him with this afterlife business. 

Besides he’s made numerous promises that if he ever became a ghost, he’d haunt the fuck out of shorty. 

.

It takes over a day to complete the ordinarily twenty minute walk. He collapses on Ryan’s couch once he gets there, not that it provides any form of relief. Half-emerged into the stuffing, Shane supposes he gets why ghosts seem so lazy now. 

He wanted to set up a little welcome present for Ryan, create a creepy circle of dolls or the more readily available x-box games. But even getting up seems like too much, and he can feel the non-sleep approaching. 

Shane tries to fight it- he _needs_ to at least tell Ryan- but he succumbs all the same, pulled into near nothingness. 

.

“-fine really. Yeah. I love you too Mom, bye.”

Ryan’s voice is a wonderful thing to hear upon awakening, and his hearing itself seems crisper. 

Shane tries to talk, but no sound emerges, and he gets up to flick the light off and on instead. 

Ryan rubs his temples, muttering, “It’s just the power. It’s all in your head. Don’t get your hopes up again Bergara.” 

That won’t do. Shane reaches for Ryan instead, grabbing through his shoulders. 

Ryan shivers, and Shane feels grounded in a way he hasn’t since death. Feels _more_ \- and suddenly he’s out again.

.

This time he wakes up faster, Ryan’s still in his Black Mamba shirt and jeans. Either Ryan’s good hygiene has mysteriously corroded or it’s the same day. 

Ryan sighs, “Last time, I’m gonna turn on this box. If you’re still here, say something.” 

The spirit box’s shrieks are even louder now, and Shane wants it to be off, _needs_ it to be off- and then it is. The blessed silence is soothing, and Ryan’s eyebrows come together, trying to figure out why his box stopped screaming. 

Ryan’s biting his lip, looking more scared. “If you did that, can you turn it back on please?” 

Shane snorts, and somehow the spirit box echoes the noise. It’s like hearing a recording of your voice, a low quality mash-up that makes you wince and wonder if you should start pitching your voice differently. 

“No,” Shane adds, and he can feel how the spirit box is working now. Much like an interdimensional microphone, though he supposes if he let the obnoxious thing scream it’d be even easier to communicate. (Like hell he’s going to do that.)

Ryan _screeches_ , scrambling to get up. 

“Fuck,” Shane mutters, the stupid box echoing him. “No don’t go, it’s me, Shane.” 

He pauses in the middle of the living room, looking ready to bolt again. “Say something only Shane would.” 

“Ghosts aren’t real Ryan,” he teases before thinking.

“ _You_ \- fuck you man,” Ryan exclaims but his shoulders slump, tension draining from his frame. 

“I still don’t like the spirit box,” Shane says, and Ryan grins. 

“I’ve missed you,” he says, sitting down on the couch. 

Shane goes beside him, close enough for their sides to mingle. 

“Holy fuck dude,” Ryan breathes. “Can you feel that?” 

“Our chemistry that surpasses even death? You betcha baby.” 

Ryan laughs, wiping at his eyes. “Yeah. Are you okay?”

“I… I keep passing out. But hey I’m conscious now so?” Shane says, he wants to fiddle with something, looks around for a small item. 

“Huh, I’ll have to do some research,” Ryan says and Shane spots a paperclip, grabbing it. 

“Fuck!” Ryan exclaims as he brings it over. Ryan pokes at the paperclip, and Shane keeps his grip on it. 

“That’s wild man, I can’t believe- I just can’t believe you’re here,” Ryan says. 

“You should film me for the show, our last episode, boogaras rejoice,” Shane teases. 

“I uh, after you- left, I stopped Unsolved.” 

“Oh,” Shane says, “you don’t wanna do a reunion episode? Our grand finale.” 

“After all this time? I can’t do it man. It’s been over a year and the comments keep coming, if we added you they’d never- no. I can’t,” Ryan says. There’s something more there, but Shane isn’t going to keep pushing.

“Over a year,” Shane echoes. “I thought… I didn’t know it’d been so long.” 

“Yeah,” Ryan says softly, reaching out to pat where he estimates his shoulder to be. (It’s more upper chest-ish area, but Shane’s warmed all the same by the gesture.)

.

Shane’s afterlife becomes unsurprisingly a lot more fun with Ryan. When Ryan’s home they test out different theories and Shane practices moving and touching stuff. Learning his limits as Ryan likes to joke, and he hasn’t gone into the non-sleep since before. Ryan hasn’t been able to find any information on that, and Shane told him to stop looking after the first month.

He’s discovered it’s easier to move stuff when he’s angry or turned on, and neither of those he wants to mess around with much. He doesn’t want to become a poltergeist- anger or lust fueled. (The fact that he can even have such thoughts unironically now blows his mind.) It’s kind of weird that he hasn’t encountered any other spirits or whatever, but Shane doesn’t give it too much thought. 

Everything is going swimmingly until they accidentally discover salt can in fact affect ghosts, and Shane’s temporarily banished to the emptiness. 

.

He comes to on the couch, and he’s definitely spent more of his afterlife on this couch than his living, and searches out Ryan. There’s water running, and he goes to the bathroom without really thinking it through. 

Shane knows he wants a little revenge prank on him, and needs to see that Ryan is in fact still here. That he didn’t pass out for a century and Ryan’s gone and-

He bursts through the bathroom door, wood clattering, and Ryan screams. 

Shane can’t make any noise, unsure where the spirit box is, writing on the condensation heavy mirror instead. 

_Fuck, sorry Ry guy. Xoxo, gossip ghost_

“You bastard. You’re lucky I know your handwriting,” Ryan grumbles, turning the shower off. His skin is flushed from the heat, water droplets highlighting every curve and edge. Ryan stops suddenly, Shane jerking his gaze upwards. 

“I’ll uh meet you in the living room. If you’re still even here,” he adds with a small laugh. His eyebrows come together then, and he yanks a towel around his waist before coming out of the shower, yelling, “SHANE!” 

Shane reaches for his arm, and Ryan’s shiver indicates it worked. 

“You broke the goddamned door Shane! The light bulbs are easy enough to replace, but a _door_?” 

Shane looks back and sure enough there’s a loose outline of a body, at least three-quarters of the door broken on the floor. Huh. 

Ryan storms out- which would be much more dramatic if he wasn’t just wearing a towel, or if the bathroom door wasn’t just an outline on hinges- and Shane follows him to the living room. There Ryan grabs the spirit box, turning on the painfully loud contraption. 

“Well?” Ryan asks. 

Shane makes the rapid radio flicks stop first, can’t deal with the white noise. 

“I’m the ghost Hulk,” Shane says. 

Ryan’s face is clearly torn between exasperation and amusement, “You’re such a dick.” 

“You love this dick.”

“Really. That’s what you’re gonna go with?” 

“Yup,” Shane says. 

Ryan rolls his eyes, “Do you even still have a dick?” 

“Oh-ho! Lookie here who’s interested in my-”

“Dear lord.” 

“-private ghostie business. Knew you always wanted to fuck a ghost Bergara.” 

Ryan throws a pen in his general direction; Shane laughs when it misses by five feet. 

.

The next reboot as Ryan has named them, happens in mid-July. (Ryan started hanging a calendar to help give Shane a sense of time, something about being undead and essentially sleepless completely ruins any sense of time’s passage.) He’s bored because Ryan’s at work and at this point he’s already read all the interesting looking books in the library. Computers and him tragically don’t get along, nor video games, effectively cutting him off from his go-to entertainment. And as he posited before, without modern amenities he wouldn’t be the best person. 

So maybe he decides to haunt Ryan’s next door neighbor that’s always being a jackass. Leaving Ryan’s home is difficult, but if he goes out on the balcony, he can do all his pranking from there. Between levitating laundry and causing all their windows to open and shut rapidly, Shane passes out. 

.

This time when Shane comes back, there are snowflakes drifting through his torso. He’s still incorporeal, but his shape is firm. There’s no question of where his toes or fingertips are, and he idly suspects he’s creeping up on a real death. (He should be afraid, he should be a lot of things that he doesn’t seem to be able to access anymore.)

There’s a distant wail, and somehow he _knows_ it’s Ryan, rushes in to find him. 

It wasn’t a wail, Shane thinks, and he’s a fucking idiot. 

Ryan’s completely naked on his bed, one hand curled behind his head, the other on his dick, slowly moving up and down. He looks like a goddamned renaissance painting, gloriously spread out in a way Shane thought was restricted to soft porn and fantasy. 

There’s a hitch in his breath as he picks up speed, and Shane’s going to leave now. He is. 

“Shane,” Ryan groans and the light bulb in the standing lamp explodes. 

Ryan’s laugh is mixed in with a moan, “You came back big guy. Finally.” 

The spirit box is on his bedside table, and Shane turns it on, silencing it before a single note can emerge. 

“Fuck Ryan,” is all he says because Shane can’t process this. He thought they had no chance when he was alive, that Ryan wasn’t into guys like that but here he is and-

“You should come- closer.” 

Shane grabs the hand behind his head, and Ryan’s back arches off the bed. Electric tingles spread all over him and Shane feels like he could do anything. Curling Ryan’s hand into a fist makes another wave of dizzy sparks, and Shane’s voice is hoarse when it comes out the box. 

“Let me move you.” 

“Yeah, whatever you want,” Ryan groans, eyes falling shut. 

Shane doesn’t make him open them, moving Ryan’s hand down to tweak a nipple instead. 

“Jackass,” Ryan mutters, but there’s a flush burning in his cheeks. 

Ryan’s dick feels nice in his other hand, thick and warm, and Shane moves that hand slower. 

“Now that’s not very nice of you,” Shane says, and it’s the closest he’s gotten the box to sounding like his own voice instead of a weird hodgepodge of estimates. Ryan shivers appropriately, and Shane’s even more pleased, feels practically alive. 

He brings Ryan’s other hand down, cupping his balls and whenever they tighten and rise, Shane pulls them down, pulling Ryan away from the edge. 

“You fucking asshole,” Ryan spits out after the third or fourth time, his body shaking with need. 

“Alright,” Shane says, and without any warning he slips his hand out of Ryan’s, stroking his dick alone. 

“Holy shit,” Ryan curses before coming all over his chest. 

He flops back, stretching an arm out, “C’mere.” 

Shane laughs, curling up next to him. “This wouldn’t have worked before.” 

“Yeah right,” Ryan says, fingers thrumming through his shoulder in a nice way. “You’re such a little spoon Madej.” 

The walls are closing in, and Shane can’t muster up any disappointment or regret. “Yeah, you’re gonna be okay.” 

Ryan tenses, “Shane, what-”

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you too,” Ryan echoes, bringing his arms in tighter as though that could hold him. (It _could_ but Shane’s pretty sure only madness lies down that path.)

This time when the darkness comes, Shane welcomes it, his last thought of Ryan’s hands in his.


End file.
